Holidays in East London and starting life in Alice
Wednesday 22nd July, 2009.
That Christmas of 1949 I think we spent with Granny and Grandpa Sadler at Aldersgate, a house they had bought in Bathurst. Joyce, Dennis, Shawn and Joanne, whom they had recently adopted were also there. We slept in the old, original part of the house connected by a long verandah to an annex. We only had lamps and candles but Grandpa had fixed up a windcharger, called by the children the windjudger, which gave them electricity for light and the radio in the annex.
The old house was interesting as it had belonged to an 1820 settler called Goldswain who had left a diary now in the Cory Library at Rhodes in Grahamstown. To his delight Grandpa found an old powder horn in one of the cupboards.
I can’t remember all we did during the holidays but we would have gone to the old Methodist church in the village. We would have paid a visit to the Kowie, Port Alfred. We probably went in the steam train which ran from Grahamstown and stopped at Bathurst to pick up passengers. All around us was the Commonage, an area available for all to use for grazing cattle, for instance, and where we enjoyed walking.
We went back to East London either for or after New Year before going to Lovedale Mission which was on the outskirts of Alice.
School would have started at the end of January so we made our way in our old Rover over dusty, bumpy corrugated roads to Alice to report to the headmaster Mr Jack Benyon who welcomed us.
The house we were to occupy still had people living in it so we were put in the old Manse, a house next to the Benyons. It was a huge house with big rooms and high ceilings and we, with our few bits of furniture, were completely lost in it. Fortunately the sitting room had window seats which helped when visitors arrived.
We closed off the huge kitchen with its woodstove and its two large pantries. We bought a two burner paraffin stove and turned a small room next to the bathroom into a kitchen diner. The geyser in the bathroom was rusty and fell to pieces when we tried to light it. We made hot water for the bath on an open fire in the yard. Two gouggoug (not sure of the spelling) tins made from tins in which the paraffin was delivered sufficed. There was a telephone in a far-off room on the other side of the large dining room in what was the chaplain’s study.
I wrote the following in February, 1950 - it seems to be all in one breath so the punctuation needs adjusting. I quote:
“Poor, dear Michael, for years now he has lived for this week – the opening of his career as a teacher, and now that it has come, he is ill and, though attending school, is forcing himself. Really he should be in bed but there it is. Though his illness is merely a bilious attack he is so weak and groggy and looks ghastly. I see in it an accumulation of many things. Firstly the mark of the POW years on a boy of 19 at those critical years of developing into a man – of adjustment back to normal life and the frustration during those years of study. Added to this is a temperament of a serious minded nature, who never complains, won’t let himself go but instead all his feelings go inside only to break out in sickness or despondency of spirit.
Other than this temporary physical handicap he is getting much satisfaction from his work even though term has only just begun. The principal, Mr Benyon, seems to like him a great deal. Both he and his wife have been very kind to us. The other morning she brought scones to tea.”
The school was just across the road from the Manse and Michael would come home for the morning break and I always made fresh scones for our tea.
Mr McAllister, the teacher of Commercial subjects, went on furlough for a few months so I took over his classes. We employed a young school girl to look after Christopher. She came from an outlying village and stayed in the servant’s room and went to school in the afternoons. She was a cheerful girl and played happily with Christopher.
Another quote from February 1950
“ ‘Oh dear’, says CJ having just pulled down the garden spade and rake. This morning he opened the tap and got soaking wet before Cooper’s boy, very much amused, rescued him. He makes such a nuisance of himself inside that I put him out but he walks round until he finds an open door and walks in – usually a door with the highest flight of steps. Closing doors is great fun and though he may walk right across a room he will turn round and come back to close the door, then with a satisfied swing of the shoulder, walk on”
Could I have been so cruel as to shut him out like that? It must have been quite safe except for the steps and I am sure I kept a maternal eye on him.
I can’t remember how long we stayed in the Manse must have been at least 6 months. Christopher loved it there as the milk cart from the Lovedale farm visited each morning and took him for a little ride down the road.
Another quote from 1950:
“Put some seeds in yesterday. Some carnation plants have died. Have great ideas about gardening. Wish we were in our eventual home as am longing to start”.
At last the chaplain was on his way from Canada and Domira was vacated and we were able to move in to our own house at last. Thereby hangs a tale.
Love, Mum